Whats going on in October??

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins everywhere!!!

The month of October we will be talking about pumpkins and feelings.  We started our new sign in method for the month having the children identify their name on a pumpkin and put it in the basket.  We have several fun books to read about pumpkins and feelings…I will post pictures of them weekly on the blog.  We will continue to work on our “stretches” before circle and add a few new poses.  Along with our new greeting this month – Stand and Reach Up High.  I will also post words to the song on the blog.  We will also sing the 5 Little Pumpkins and use a prop to sing along with.  We will also watch different short video clips on you tube such as: how a pumpkin grows, fill your bucket, how does a seed become a plant and a couple of others. 

Our first week we will focus mostly on the life cycle of the pumpkin and all different types of feelings.  I have created a simple book – How is your Pumpkin Feeling and it has several different pumpkin faces for them to match happy, sad, mad, silly etc…  In our block area we will continue with our block challenge photo cards.  This is where the children try to copy the picture on the card and build the same structure with the blocks.  Also, in the block area the children will find items to create a pumpkin patch different orange pieces for pumpkins, brown thread and green strips of paper for vines.  For table work we will count pumpkins, do a pumpkin investigation where we will measure and draw our pumpkins, and each child will create their own Where is the Pumpkin book where the children will place the pumpkin on the page according to the spatial words on the page (example next to the tree, over the tree, under the tree etc…).  The children will also mix 2 colors at the easel from our book we read last week and paint different pictures.  Along with a couple of other fun art projects.  I added something new to the rice in the sensory table for the children to find…small candy corn and pumpkin erasers and orange gems!!  The children will also have a few other pumpkin items out in the room – pumpkin tic tac toe, pumpkin felt faces, and a gross motor activity in the classroom.  We will also go over the rules for our water table and open it at the end of the week.  Pam from the Burnham Library will also be here this week to share books with us in class.

Second week the children will have a pumpkin patch in the dress up area with pumpkins that they created from small brown paper bags.  We will read Spookley the Square pumpkin and create our own square pumpkins, and read How Full is Your Bucket and talk about how to be a bucket filler and create a classroom book.  The children will try to paint pumpkins at the easel.  Our classroom experiment will be trying to grow a pumpkin inside of a pumpkin  - fingers crossed it goes well.  Table work will be creating patterns, rhyming, counting pumpkin on ten frames, and measuring pumpkin cards.

Third week – This is a short week there is NO SCHOOL OCT 18 & 19!!!

We will try to create pumpkin faces using orange playdough and different items.  We will read the book Glad Monster, Sad Monster and create our own monster and put them into a class book.  We will work very hard to create our name on a pumpkin.  The children will cut on the line and assemble their name gluing each piece to create a pumpkin, with some teacher prep done ahead of time.  We will also do a pumpkin smashing activity – yes pumpkin smashing…the children will each take a turn to smash the pumpkin with a wooden mallet.

Fourth week – We will continue playing in all the areas from the previous weeks.  We will end our theme reading some of the fun pumpkin books and focus mostly on the happy feeling.  We will also read a couple of books about being the same and being different.  We will try to add celery in colored water to see what will happen.  If there is time we will try to create a pumpkin volcano.  We will take out the number mats with our playdough. Table work will be measuring how many pumpkin tall you are, classifying cards, sequence cards in order for the pumpkin life cycle, and draw a picture to tell me a story.

A full month of fun learning activities for the children to enjoy.

Darcie